Anarchism: A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas

This blog is intended to provide additional commentary and selections to accompany my anthology of anarchist writings, Anarchism: A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas. Volume One, subtitled From Anarchy to Anarchism (300CE-1939), was published in 2005 by Black Rose Books. Volume Two, now subtitled The Emergence of the New Anarchism (1939-1977), was published in April 2009, also by Black Rose Books. Volume Three, subtitled The Anarchist Current(1974-2012), came out in late 2012. I have posted the Prefaces and Tables of Contents for all three volumes. I am in the process of linking some of the selections listed in the Table of Contents for Volume One, which I have also posted, to online versions of the complete texts.

Anarchism is a documentary history of anarchist ideas, not a documentary history of the various anarchist movements around the world, which would be an altogether different and gargantuan project. That said, I have tried to include material from a variety of regions, movements and intellectual currents, from the Daoists in ancient China, to the Diggers in the English Revolution, the enragés in the French Revolution, various European anarchist currents, such as the anarchist communists, the anarcho-syndicalists and the Platformists, the “pure” and class struggle anarchists in Japan, Korean revolutionaries, the Chinese anarchist movement, Latin American anarchists, anarchist feminists, libertarian pedagogues, anarchist artists and writers, Russian anarchists, North American anarchists and the Spanish libertarian movement. No other anthology of anarchist writings is as broad or as comprehensive. Several selections have never before appeared in English translation, and others are from obscure or out of print sources.

Glad to have found this blog! I have your first volume of the Anarchism trilogy and did not know there would be more than two books so was wondering what was delaying the next book. Glad to see there will be three!

I was curious – after reading the essays planned for vol 3 that you did not include something on anarchism and religion/atheism. I wonder if anything has been written about this? I also wonder if any of the essays will deal with the kind of anarchism called ‘libertarian-socialism’ (besides Chomsky)? Finally, might I suggest you publish in Vol. 3 an essay or two by Takis Fotopoulos who is not exactly an anarchist or socialist, but has an idea called Inclusive Democracy which comes very close to anarchism if you ask me. You can find his writings at http://www.inclusivedemocracy.org/journal/.

Volume 2 has a selection by Nicolas Walter on anarchism and religion that deals with the connection between anarchism and atheism. Several selections in each volume deal with “libertarian socialism.” Most of the 19th century and early 20th century anarchists regarded themselves as socialists. In Volume 2, I included material by several people, in addition to Chomsky, who would regard themselves as libertarian socialists or libertarian communists, such as André Breton, Maurice Fayolle, André Prudhommeaux, Louis Mercier Vega, Daniel Guérin, the Cohn-Bendit brothers, Jacobo Prince, and Maurice Joyeaux. Volume 3 will include selections by Alfredo Errandonea, Amedeo Bertolo, Ariane Gransac, Brian Martin, Luis André Edos, John Crump and Mark Leier, among others.

I’m reading first volume of your book, have the second lined up and am waiting for the third one. Thank you for doing it. I included a link to your blog in my little blog called Globalwill.org. I try to inspire. I have another for my poetry and other texts I produced along life. I’m intrigued about the absence of any material from the Situationists and would like to know if there is a reason for that. BTW, is there an electronic versio of the Anarchist Program of Malatesta, the one of Bologna’s Congress? Your contributions to Anarchism are awesome!

Thank you for your comments and for including a link to my blog on yours. As for the lack of situationist material in Volume Two, there are a number of reasons for that. First, the situationists were generally very dismissive of anarchism and certainly never identified themselves as anarchists. While I included some people who didn’t identify themselves as anarchists, such as Martin Buber, Ivan Illich and Paul Feyerabend, the first two were influenced by anarchists and Feyerabend liked to think of himself as a kind of anarchist. Second, I just didn’t have enough space to include people who may have influenced anarchists, rather than anarchists themselves. One of the purposes of the anthology is to show how rich and varied anarchist currents of thought have been. So although there is nothing by the situationists, or by Wilhelm Reich (in Volumes One or Two), I included Carol Ehrlich’s piece on anarchist feminism, in which she relates situationist ideas to anarchism, and a couple of anarchist interpretations of Reich, to show that anarchists were not tied to 19th century conceptions of anarchism but were in tune with new intellectual developments (much more so than most Marxists of the same eras). One former associate, who has had nothing to do with anarchism for the last 25 years and now teaches at a university, actually suggested that what I should have done was an anthology of all the “great” thinkers who influenced the anarchists, because the anarchists themselves are second rate, derivative thinkers. So instead of Bakunin, there would just be Hegel and Marx; instead of Kropotkin, there would be Darwin, etc. I found that to be incredibly condescending (to be clear, I’m not suggesting that your question is; my original draft table of contents included excerpts from Society of the Spectacle and Revolution of Everyday Life, but at the end of the day I would have had to leave out equally (to me) valuable material from self-identified anarchists that I hope demonstrates that their ideas are worthy of consideration in their own right). As for Malatesta’s Anarchist Program, sorry, I don’t know if it’s available on the internet. The version I used was taken from Vernon Richards’ anthology of Malatesta’s writings, Malatesta: Life and Ideas, published by Freedom Press. Thanks again. I hope Volume Three will be out soon!

Having translated ‘La Rivoluzione’ in full and currently translating Pisacane’s letters, I remember very nearly making the same mistake. It made sense too, as you found! It was only following the stream of thought in his letters that it became clear to what he was referring. Having virtually completed the translation of the letters it is surprising how much of his work has its initial airing in his correspondence. Large chunks of his ‘Saggi’ come directly from his letters.

The easiest way to get copies of Anarchism: A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas is through Amazon.com, or the regional equivalent. Copies of Volumes One and Two are still available. Volume Three should be out sometime this Fall (2012).

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